


Masters & Disciples

by terriku



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurot (Final Fantasy XIV), Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, gratuitous mentor-student chain featuring hythlodaeus-hades-azem, lahabrea is here too but only in spurts & not enough to merit the tag, now with 5.3 spoilers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terriku/pseuds/terriku
Summary: Emet-Selch takes a disciple and finds, to his great irritation, that the words of his own master are true:It is the privilege of the master to be surpassed by a student.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I will admit to only reading the lore of Emet-Selch and Amaurot on a whole kind of loosely so (wiggles hands) excuse everything here that is inaccurate as rampant headcanon.

On the seventh day of the sixth turn of the umbral moon, Hades walked into the Bureau of the Architect and immediately regretted his decision to do so. For, there, standing on the threshold, chatting with one of the numerous concept clerks as if it were the most normal thing in the world, was Hythlodaeus, Chief of the Bureau of the Architect himself. No, he knew better. Hythlodaeus went wherever he pleased, and that was almost anywhere but the front door of his own Bureau. Hades should have left, but it galled him to turn tail and run. Wasn't he past that age? When Hythlodaeus turned towards him and smiled – he would _know_ that look anywhere, it was a harbinger of trouble – and said “Ah, my old friend,” Hades cursed his rigid pride. But by the by, all avenues of escape had evaporated and Hades gave himself unto his fate. He let the Chief guide him back to his office and sit him down in an obnoxiously soft chair of his own creation.

“Honored Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen-” said the man who had been his mentor and had been offered the position in question long before it had been offered to Hades. There was no mockery in his voice, though as far as Hades was concerned, that was in and of itself mockery.

“Enough of that," Hades said rather more brusquely than needed, "tell me what you want.”

Beneath the lip of his hood, Hythlodaeus was smiling. Amused, perhaps, and exasperated that time had changed little of Hades’ demeanor. How was Hades to explain that it was his friend that brought this out of him? In the Council chambers he was known for decisiveness and the evenness of his tone. Hythlodaeus' own immutable good cheer brought out the sour sullenness within him, but he could not abide by childish excuses and thus held his tongue. 

“You have never taken a student.”

Ah.

A frequent topic lately. He was of an age, and certainly had the position for it. Elidibus had asked twice as to his plans already. Yes, Hades could see where this was going already as clear as sunlight.

“No,” he replied, “nor do I plan to, as you well know.”

“Yes, I understand, for someone of your office and ability there have been far too few worthy of being your student. Exactly none, I would say in the time since you have left my tutelage.”

“The talent has nothing to do with it, I haven’t the time –”

Hythlodaeus took no pause upon his interjection and continued on smoothly. It was another habit that irked Hades to no end.

“But there is one now. Someone of such ability that only you might be a worthy mentor.”

“Then take them up yourself; I haven’t the time nor the will to teach a small child.”

Hythlodaeus just nodded. It was entirely unlike him to let something go so simply so Hades could only narrow his eyes and await the ace in his sleeve the man surely held.

“Lahabrea will seek the position himself through a council-request.”

“Only that self-absorbed fool would waste council time with such a request.” And then a pause, as he considered the oddity of such a thing. A mentorship was one of the things in life that did not come to often and the caliber of one’s mentor often foretold one’s future standing. He could think of several reasons that _he_ would have to turn Lahabrea's offer down, but almost none for a youngling. “Is this youngling worth the attention of the Council?”

Hythlodaeus hummed in agreement. It was enough to tell Hades that there was more to this story, though as it did not pertain to him in any way – let Hytholdaeus sort out all his issues himself, that is what he got for sticking his nose in every single pie he could find – he did not think to ask further. Rather, he did not want to ask further. His friend had a soft ability with words that twisted the will. It was not the hard-cutting edge of Lahabrea’s rhetoric, but still Hades often found himself doing things he had never planned to do at all when he listened too long.

“I have other things to attend to,” and saying so, he stood suddenly. It was the truth, though also a quick exit as both knew well.

With the seed of knowledge firmly planted, Hythlodaeus made no move to stop nor follow. His gaze found Hades’ with ease though, and commanded that it be held. Friends though they were now, once this man had been his master and mentor. Some habits do die hard.

“If only you could meet her Hades, you would know. There has never been one so talented and gifted in our ways. She is truly worthy to be your student.”

As the record-holder for "quickest traversal of the Bureau of the Architect", Hades was out and back under Amaurot's bright skies in a breath. He made his way down the tree-lined avenue and tried to put Hythlodaeus' words out of his mind. He took up the issue which has recently vexed him to no end - the matter of the skies above Amaurot and their emptiness. A complex problem to which he had not yet made heads-or-tails of. He was, emphatically, not running away.

*

Three days later, after all official business had been attended to and all that was left were the various audiences with the citizens of Amaurot, Elidibus read out a request for arbitration and witness from a Lahabrea. Two thoughts rose to the front of Hades' attention.

 _What a pompous fool_ , was the first. If Lahabrea was going to request an audience and witness from the entire Convocation of Fourteen, then at the very least he ought to have submitted it under his own name instead of that of his office. But then, Lahabrea had always clung to his laurels a bit too tightly.

The second thought came to him as a young child was ushered into the room. They wore no mask which confirmed their age. When they raised their head to look at the Council, the shock of the color there flew straight down his spine and he remembered, all at once, Hythlodaeus' words three days prior. Yellow. But not golden like molten metal, and not bright like sunshine; simply bright. Striking and impressive to see on a youngling not yet afforded their adult-robes. There were many a full-grown citizen who could not make of themselves something similar. The child stared at him the longest, and Hades began to see the shape of the trap Hythlodaeus had laid for him.

Lahabrea spoke for himself as expected. He introduced the child and listed some of their achievements and asked for witness from the council and recognition that from this day henceforth, that he would be their master and they to be his student.

This was a much a posturing as anything else. Surely the other members thought Lahabrea only meant to show off his new student, clearly overflowing in ability, in front of the Council with as much pomp and circumstance as he could manage. And yet, Elidibus had this smile on his face when Hades objected that suggested he knew something of this too.

“Surely the matter you have come to Council for is not simply to show off a pupil. Since you have called the child here too, let us hear from them that they are willing and we shall all witness your oaths and be on our way.”

All eyes then turned to the child, who Hades noted with a drop of misplaced pride, had not quivered under the gaze of the Thirteen of Amaurot. If anything, they seemed to straighten up under the scrutiny which was a trait he could respect. But they said nothing and that silence was telling. Lahabrea was not so green a speaker as to panic, but he was surely cursing Hades for putting his finger so squarely on the issue.

“Well?” Mitron prompted.

Nabriales turned to Lahabrea and asked, “The child did agree to become your disciple, did they not?”

“Of course they didn’t,” Igeyorhm said while laughing, “if they did, would Lahabrea bring them here to browbeat into submission?”

Hades might have sat back and smiled and soaked in Lahabrea’s growing embarrassment. Delicious as it was, there was something more pressing that needed to be done. He stood up and walked down from his seat. He stood in front of the child with the yellow eyes, a girl-child if Hythlodaeus was correct though these things changed with time and who could know in the future? He could almost sense Lahabrea’s shoulders tensing with each step he took.

“I am Hades and Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen,” he said. Even standing in front of him, head raised to meet his eyes, the child did not waver and this close Hades could admire the skill in the face they had made for themselves. It was not a perfect pale even tone, but darker in some areas. There was a splashing of small dots across their face as if the sun might have reached down and left pinprints on skin. Perfection, like straight lines and clean angles, was easy. Something mimicking the natural world with all its messy and random effects was less so.

“I know,” she said. And then, before he could say the words himself, she reached out her hand so that it was palm up, “and I will give unto you my service and my abilities as far as you can nurture them, and my naming too if you will agree to let me learn at your side and under your hand as your disciple.”

There was exactly a zero percent chance this child had not met Hythlodaeus. This was, word-for-word, almost exactly what Hythlodaeus would have said in a similar situation. Someone so bold and with such a irrelevance for procedure and ceremony could only be reared under his hand. Hades would not be surprised if he took up the employment-rolls of the Bureau of the Architect and found this child’s name scrawled somewhere under Hythlodaeus’ oversight. He had not expected anything else. His former-master had the keenest eyesight in all of Amaurot and beyond.

Even as Lahabrea spluttered in the background and made several cutting remarks and valid objections, Hades took the child’s hand. He pressed his palm straight to theirs and let a flow of his own aether pass between them. He felt the returning answer, bright and fresh like a cold mountain stream, and well. That was that. There was nothing anyone could do anymore for all matters between them were now between the master and the student.

*

As they walked back to the child’s lodgings – the Bureau of the Architect just as he’d guessed – he asked what had happened to bring such a scene unto the Council Chamber.

This child’s face was expressive, suiting to a child, though Hades suspected that this was something that would follow them through their life. He could see the story half there already. She’d caught the eye of Lahabrea some way or another and at a poor timing as Lahabrea was of an age with Hades, and titled and seated in the Council for only a slightly shorter time. It was the right time for both to take on students. A little past the prime to be honest. And that of course meant the whole city was talking of little else in the empty hours, for surely, anyone who might call Emet-Selch or Lahabrea their master would be a shining star upon which Amaurot’s hopes might rest. Lahabrea had come around to make inquiries and offers, but the child had not wanted such a thing and had taken to, among other things, hiding in a broom closet.

“And, did Hythlodaeus suggest my name as a way out? I suppose only another Council member would have been able to shield you from Lahabrea’s overbearing nature-”

“No!” They said and turned on their heel quite emphatically. “No, I do not care for the ranking or the titles –“ which was such a Hythlodaeus-ian sentiment Hades had to swallow his laughter – “but I liked your concept, the one for the bird, and I told the Chief that I wanted the creator of this concept to be my master and no one else, and the Chief told me that could be arranged.”

They looked up at him and then away. “I did not know you were Emet-Selch. I would have wanted you, title or no. I do not even know why Lahabrea wanted me for a student either.”

“No,” he said, “I can see that. A small detail that Hythlodaeus left out then.” They walked together in silence through the city. Few looked their way, though Hades was sure the news from the Council chamber would spread quickly soon. A spat between Emet-Selch and Lahabrea over a student! What talent and ability must that child possess to be fought over by two members of the Convocation? “Then, in the chamber, how did you know that I was the one whom you wanted as master?”

“Oh, I could see your color. It was the same as the one in the concept’s blueprints so I knew right away.”

They said this without any pause or understanding of just how momentous such knowledge was. Few were those who could see or hear the of the underworld which flowed around and within them. Fewer still whose sight manifested so young, and even among them Hades doubted that any were keen-eyed enough to see the traces of resonance on something like an old concept and match it to its source with confidence.

This time he did laugh and when the child stared at him with puzzlement, he understood too, a little of what Hythlodaeus must have felt eons and eons ago when his own student had stared at him thusly.


	2. Chapter 2

“Master,” she says one day, “why is it that the color of the soul is perceivable to all but the holder?”

This is a very poetic way of asking and Emet-Selch, for all his eloquence and oratory skill, has never abided by the presence of such waste in his speech and thus expects the same from his disciple. She’s spent entirely too much time with Hythlodaeus and it shows. Outside the window of his office the night-sky folds itself over Amaurot. It’s a spell of his own weaving that’d taken the better part of a decade to work out and, it did not hurt him to admit, had required his own student’s insight.

For all her lack of tact and precociousness, there was a spark within that occasionally filled him with wonder. He had never thought his master’s choice to turn down the seat of Emet-Selch relatable, but now he does in fits and bursts. This stupid child of his who gazes at him as if he has hung the stars and sun and moon in the sky will surpass him in all areas – if only he could channel her talents in one direction. To see her raised to adulthood, to have sharpened her talents to their pinnacle; that would be the achievement of his lifetime.

Her attention though, runs wild, flitting about haphazardly. He has not yet found the focus for her. This, he suspects, is a problem that Hythlodaeus did not have. Hades had always known what he loved and what he wanted. Amaurot. Amaurot, and all her citizens and all her glory, now and eternally.

“Master,” she says again, persistent in all the worst ways, “why can I not see the color of my own soul?”

Emet-Selch does not turn, though he knows without a doubt his student is perched behind him and staring with eagerness and intensity. She’s like a child still sometimes. Endlessly hungry despite the years that have passed. She wears the cloak of adulthood only half the time and often shirks it for whatever adornments she has seen fit to weave that day. One day she wears a poncho of sunset, and the other a shawl of snow. She had once conjured up a cape of soft darkness that had caressed her face and embraced her bright eyes so gently, Hades had rubbed it between his fingers and known exactly what to hang in the sky above the city.

“What color is it?” She asks finally reaching the question she’d meant to ask this entire time.

“Blue,” he answers.

Blue as the fathomless seas and the endless skies; deeper than azure and brighter than turquoise. It is without words. Without compare. He would recognize it anywhere, and this, he thinks, will hold true no matter the distance and time between them. One day, she will no longer be his student but her soul will still be this enduring blue. Hades is not Mitron. He is not romantic and there are no songs in his body. But, surely, there is a part of him stained in her blue. He has dipped her fingers into her soul and he has shaped her from wet clay into a vessel and – it is no metaphor when he says he would know her half-blind, through eternity and calamity, sundered and beyond.

She has a thoughtful look on her face that usually bodes ill. Hades finally turns to look at her and she’s leaning against the back of the cushion so that she’s looking at him, but up-side down so that the ends of her hair are brushing the ground. It’s a position uncomfortable enough to give him a headache and he says as much.

“What made you think of soul colors anyways?”

She’s scrunching her nose in the way that broadcasts her confusion. Hades has never told her that it makes her look juvenile. That’s a fact that he keeps to himself for amusement. He suspects that his expression mirrors the mysteriously amused expression Hythlodaeus often wore during his apprenticeship.

“Elidibus told me that the color of my soul was exquisite.”

She has his full attention now. Prior to this, Hades would have never thought he could feel protective of a person. There is Amaurot, and he is dedicated to Amaurot in her entirety. But now there is this little student of his whom is endearing and vexing in the same breath. She has talent and ability far beyond anything else, practically ear-marked for a Convocation seat since her adolescence, and Lahabrea had not been wrong at least in this. But Hades has taught her for the better part of two centuries, has watched the clear-eyed child grow into a citizen in her own right, and he understands too that she will never stay. It is not in her nature, just as the wind cannot stop blowing so too will she wander. He wants to raise her to the Convocation, to seat her and title her because Amaurot has need of her, but she hates the titles. He treasures the time they have together but he has always known that it was limited. One day she will leave, and when she returns it will be no more a return home, only the short rest of a migratory bird. Truthfully, sometimes he wonders why she has not flown from Amaurot already.

(Hythlodaeus had laughed, of course – _old friend, old friend do you really not know? What the counterweight in her heart is?_ )

Once, he had thought to pass her Emet-Selch’s seat. She is, after all, one of the greatest architects of Amaurot. The dearth of official cataloged creations more due to her disregard for bureaucratic process than anything else. And Hades is not so attached to his title that he will not yield for a more capable individual. But now he sees clearly that the only seat for her is Azem. Perhaps it has always been the seat destined for her. There’s a growing suspicion in his chest that Elidibus has long since known this.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” he says with more fondness than expected. “Perhaps the Emissary is trying to ply you with flattery. Win you over with pretty words and have you accept the position you’ve been so earnestly dodging.”

“Surely, he cannot mean to replace you yet, you are still spry and youthful!”

This earns her a flick to the forehead, currently exposed because his student refuses to abide by traditions and keep her hood up. “I have no plans of retirement or death, now or in the future.”

She laughs, and it would gall Hades how familiar and precious the sound is to him, but this is a fact that he has long since accepted.

*

The Emissary is watching the night-spinners weave the winter sky from above the Macarenses Angle. It is a work which requires both diligence and a certain gentleness; neither of which suit Nabriales which does not prevent them from producing the best work. Something about their passion had convinced Hades to hand the finished concept off and allow someone else to oversee the production. 

From a height, Hades admires the work too. The night-sky he spins is not half as beautiful as Nabriales'. Tonight, the inky darkness is all-encompassing without being oppressive. It folds itself over Amaurot like a blanket. The soft pulse of the stars lends light and comfort to the whole creation. He has never divulged where this inspiration had come from.

“She will not take my seat.”

It would be enough to declare this and leave. But, Elidibus was Hythlodaeus’ contemporary. Hades may be his peer now, but there is a smidge of deference in him still. He finds himself waiting for the Emissary’s acknowledgement.

“Azem, then”

An understanding passes between them.

“This is good timing Emet-Selch. The seat of Azem has long been empty, it will be good to have our Shepherd among us again." A pause then. Nabriales and the other spinners have finished setting the winter constellations in the sky. Somehow, he feels that Elidibus' gaze lingers on the serpent-intertwined. "And, in the future, I will step down and leave Amaurot. There is a child whom is worth of my seat – when the time comes, will you look after them?”

From the moment he had pressed his palms to Hythlodaeus’ own and made the oaths of apprenticeship, Hades has always known he would take no students. He hasn’t the nature for it. There is one thing in his heart only, and surely there is room for now more. But time has a way of proving him wrong. Elidibus asks him to take his chosen successor as disciple, and Hades, in total control of his faculties, says yes.

“Not right now of course,” he adds, “not until mine has been discharged. I won’t split my attention. A duty ought to be fulfilled in its entirety.”

Laughter bellows forth from the Emissary. “Of course,” Elidibus says,” I understand. But Emet-Selch, really, you must not cling too tightly. For all that we wish to keep them at our side, still, they must spread their own wings and soar if they are to inherit these skies. She is ready, I think, only waiting to be pushed from the nest.”

*

It is a sunny day when his student first leaves Amaurot.

He sees her off at the gate and then, somehow, he finds himself back in the Bureau of the Architect. Hythlodaeus is watering a plant – a concept which requires care and isn’t self-sustaining. This, his former master tells him, is intentional and not a flaw. He is sitting on the irritatingly soft chair he’d created as a youngling, and if his posture is not exactly proper, then he can be forgiven. Certainly, Hythlodaeus has never cared for propriety.

“She left without looking back!”

His former master hums in response, clearly far more absorbed with the flawed concept than Hades’ very valid complaints.

“I never left you like that and even when I did, you’ve always known where to find me.”

“Most especially when you do not wish to be found,” Hythlodaeus affirms. Snip. A leaf is cut from the stem. Snip, another leaf falls to the ground. Hades tries not to draw parallels. “You did not leave physically, no, but you did leave my tutelage eventually. All students must eventually step out from under their master’s wing. That is the nature of students.”

It is not that Hades does not know this. It is only that his disciple is especially stupid and careless and as liable to create a disaster of some sort as to get herself killed. “Think you she is capable of stepping out from under my wing, that she is ready to face the world entire? She will return to us nothing more than a wisp of aether.”

“No, I think not. You would not have let her go if she was unready. You have never done things in halves.”

This, of course, is the truth so Hades has nothing else to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll take "Elidibus being a child" in unexpected revelations out of 5.3 for $500 please.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Azem had sent a message home, it was on a scrap of raw crystal sent back in the hands of a dreadful black-horned beast Hades knows not how to describe. It crashes in through a window and deposits its burden by opened one ugly clawed hand before disappearing in a crackle of purple-black æther. Whether its patch of destruction is by design or a fact overlooked, well, he chooses not to dwell too long on this.

Hades would like to say it takes him however many days to figure out just what this is supposed to be, but he cannot claim the credit for it. It is Icarus who figures it out. The child, recently entrusted into his care by Elidibus, holds the crystal close to his ear and then proclaims that he hears something.

When Hades lifts it to his ear, he hears it too in her steady voice: _Once, there was a warrior of light clad in armor, wielding sword and shield. A noble warrior that fears no one and faces any foe gallantly. He has taken on the role of a leader among the warriors._

Icarus watches intently and smiles when Hades sets the crystal down. “Do you think,” he asks, “I could become a warrior of light?”

Hades presses his hand to Icarus’ head. “Yes, but why become it when we can create it? Never forget that we are creators and shapers.”

The child nods. “It would be nice if we could have listened to the story together.”

Hades rolls the crystal in his palm and considers. Why Azem felt the need to send just her voice across the distance, when she might have sent a creation, or a construct warrior of light instead, he will never understand. But he can see the sprout she’s sent and the future it can be refined into. A message – sound and images and feelings too, if he can manage – all suspended in crystal. A physical reminder of existence.

“Well then, let us get started. There is much to improve here, learn but do not emulate your senior disciple’s workmanship.”

*

_Master,_ she writes in crystal, _I am well. The plains are as wide as the eye can see and the wind moves through the grass in waves. I am the furthest away from open ocean as I can be, and yet, I feel that I am standing in the middle of a vast sea._

She does not address his entreaty, nor does she mention a return date. There isn’t even a salutation. There’s only an illegible jumble of words to tie it off – recursion, eternity, infinite finiteness, third drawer from the left – which Hades understands to be both a truncated examination of souls, and also the location of the concept which Hythlodaeus has “misplaced”. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it had been “borrowed” by his student? He uses this term loosely because all definitions must bend in exposure to her and Hythlodaeus.

Nevertheless, he returns the fire-bird concept to Hythlodaeus the next day. On a whim he asks how, hypothetically, if he were the one to wander off into the world, would his master summon him back?

Hythlodaeus smiles his indulgent smile and tells him it is simple. He must send a message of course, carried on swift wings to find their little wanderer, wherever she is. Perhaps he would like to borrow this concept that he has conveniently already checked out from the archive?

The concept in question has the faintest blue clinging to its edges, but he’d recognize that color even diluted to this extent. It is simple and ridiculous in its simplicity. Only his student would have conceptualize bending the wind into a bird’s form and conceived a bird that could read soul-colors. There’s a fundamental flaw in it that bellies its age and turns it into more of a color-seeking missile. Though the thought is momentarily appealing, Hades does not truly have any desire to send a projectile careening into his student’s head. He fixes it and then stares down at it and wonders what he means to say.

It takes Hades three days and four nights to write a message that he is satisfied with. He has gone through entreaties, arguments, scolding and even the closest to begging he is capable of coming, but at the end he sends her only two words: _Come home_.

*

Azem of the Convocation of Fourteen, Azem of the rising sun, Azem whom is shepherd to the stars, is as fleeting as the four winds. Though they hold a seat in Amaurot, they are almost never there. Instead they wander the world and beyond. It is a title that holds a great weight – one that Hades has never thought to equal. There is an Emet-Selch in each generation. It is a seat that has never lacked for candidates. But Azem has been empty more oft than not. Few are capable of all that the title demands and the decision to pass the title to his student had been unanimous.

Azem, the fourteenth, is free to wander and drift through the ages and seas and stars. Azem has always been ruled by their heart, and not by the needs of the city.

He holds no jurisdiction over her. His pleas carry no special weight. And his student, has never placed the feelings of Amaurot high in her heart. Hades had passed her name up for consideration and had fully expected to never see her again.

But his words have summoned her home. He knows before he even opens the door – the unmistakable blue is spilling out of the seams.

She is pressing a shell to Icarus’ ear. “Look, this was alive once and now you can hear the ocean in it.” Icarus’ eyes are wide in wonder. His hand grips Azem’s as if to press the shell closer and closer still. “Azem,” the child says, fingers clenching tight, “what is an ocean?”

They giggle together and laugh at all the absurd number of things that Azem manages to bring back. The clutter inevitably ends up populating Hades’ abode, which once, could have been called sparse. Azem is wearing for the form of one of the mortal tribes but her eyes are still the same color. He does not doubt that later, when Icarus thinks no one else is looking, the child too will try to create a similar guise for himself. Though no blood or lineage bonds them, they are thicker than thieves. It helps, he supposes, that Azem is less mature than their age bellies, and that Icarus is more.

Hades will scold and scowl the entire evening, but so too will he pull a blanket over them when they inevitably fall asleep on the floor, curled together like animals. Amaurot is great and vast and full of so many wonders that one cannot count them. Only two of her many denizens lie in front of him, and yet, it is as if the whole of Amaurot lay there. This is love then, deep and abiding and nurtured by passing time.

When he looks back on this moment, a hundred thousand eons from now, he will wish this was the last time she came home.

*

Instead the last time goes like this: things have grown dire in the city, and though Azem would not be called back for love of the city, she has come back again at his word. She has always loved her master and held her loyalty high in her heart.

When they brought the child forth, she’d scowled and Emet-Selch knew then and there what this would cost him.

“This is wrong-”

As if recognizing that they are the crux of the issue, Icarus’ response is instantaneous: “I want this.”

“You don’t know what you want at all!” She snaps back just as quickly. Then, with the same air of a sibling seeking parental oversight, she turns to Emet-Selch. “Master, this is a child, are we so craven to sacrifice a child to an endless abyss?”

Emet-Selch does not speak. The others do. They point to the chaos and the calamities and destruction. They appeal to pathos, to logos, to ethos. It does not matter. She is looking only at him, searching his eyes, pleading for him to speak. What she expects him to say, he does not know. To turn back? To allow chaos and fear to engulf Amaurot? To let this city fall? No. Never. Hades will not abide it – he is incapable of it.

“But I am _willing_ -” Icarus pleads and they both wince; the child who will become Elidibus, who will become the heart of Zodiark, who will become the salvation of Amaurot, is so eager and so earnest it scrapes the heart raw.

Hades does not speak out again. The Convocation votes 13-1 to pass the title of Elidibus to young Icarus, and with all that comes with it.

Azem watches. Her eyes are hard and she is biting her lip. It is another habit of her youth that Hades cannot forget. It makes her look young, he thinks, but she is no longer his student.

*

She leaves after, and this time Hades knows that she will not come back.

It is not the city which has betrayed her, but now she sees him as he is. As the man he’s always been and not her master who’d hung stars in the sky. Hades has never claimed to be exemplary in any form. But more than her absence, the knowledge that he’s disappointed her sits heavy in his stomach. Not heavy enough for regret, but enough so that some days Hades changes the color of his eyes. It takes him three centuries to get the color right.

There are no letters, nor messages.

Somewhere, out there, his student is wandering, and Hades is here in the city eternal. If this was the fate that was always waiting for them, then, even then, Hades does not have the strength to curse Hythlodaeus. He cannot fathom a world where they do not meet, nor does he want to. But he has come to know sorrow now, so deep and unabating that it has become a part of him. He will, he suspects, never unlearn it.

In time, when the other measures are no longer enough, they offer up Elidibus and half the city. It is a heavy price to pay, but not an unfamiliar one for Emet-Selch who has already sacrificed one child.

Icarus is half gone too. Sometimes Emet-Selch hears the child inside the swirling darkness, but most days he does not. There are laws laid down, and urgings, and above all, a great gnawing emptiness in his heart. He does not regret. He does not.

But it would be a lie to say he does not miss those days, when Azem were still his student and Icarus still a child. When the both of them would create unholy messes and creations complex and inane enough to boggle the mind. The image of them curled together, asleep on the cold floor comes to mind unbidden.

Hades has always loved Amaurot. Has always known he would love Amaurot above all else and had carried that knowledge with pride. It is only now that he wishes he loved a little less.

*

Hades sees Azem one time before the end.

He does not intend to. Azem had left, had forsworn him, had hated him – and, and Hades, whatever else might be said, has always had his stubborn measure of pride. He will not beg. He tells himself this, of course, because the truth is, he has always accepted that Azem would not return for Amaurot, that they would not return for him either but –

But Icarus had been like a sibling to them.

Sometimes Hades hears the child in the swirling darkness, but the times grow thinner and thinner. And Emet-Selch cannot allow this to haunt him, but it does dwell in the darkest corners of Hades’ heart as an unbanished specter. He has tried again and again to reach into the darkness and pull the child out again, had offered the old raw crystal to them, had placed the seashell on their desk again. Elidibus had not recognized them.

Hades does not beg.

But this world is going to end, and there will be a great sundering such that none will survive whole and, and Icarus had hung on Azem’s arm and stared at them as if they’d hung the sun in the sky and loved them with all the reckless and thoughtless abandon of a child. If there is any who can be a light for them in the din of a thousand voices, then it is Azem.

Hades does not beg. Hades says, “is this not another road?”

He has lost one child forever. The second is slipping away fast and he will do whatever he can to save them. “I fear,” he says, and this is a bone-deep confession because Emet-Selch must never show fear, must always believe in the inviolable and immortal city, “that one day he will lose himself and Icarus will be truly lost.”

Azem does not say: _But Icarus is dead and has long been dead; you killed him slowly, condemned him to disappear like mist dissipating in air. But Icarus cannot be saved, can only be subsumed into the empty mask of Elidibus, and you have watched as a child entrusted to your care is slain at an altar. You have killed and killed until the city is empty; you have loved the city without valuing that which made it. Master, you have been blind to that which truly matters._

Azem does not say this, instead she says: “Go, for I will not.”

Azem does not cast the blame at his feet. She does not say that Hades has killed Icarus, has killed half their people, and will soon kill the other half too. She does not say that the shining city has died in his hands and that their world will to; but she does not need to. Hades hears this loud and clear.

When he leaves, he does not say goodbye.

After this, of course, comes the End and the Sundering. Emet-Selch drifts alone through the 14 shards doing his duty as she once did, and he searches for any flash of her blue all the while. As if in final rebuke, Azem never appears in front of him again.

*

_Azem, tell me what is it that you love best?_

_I love the clear sky after the rain, it means a good day is coming._

_Of course, for a traveler always comes home in good weather._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it too on the nose to call Elidibus "Icarus"? Yes, but I will do it regardless.
> 
> This story was based on my personal WoL/Azem, who is really rather a poor Ascian and much rather the fancies of the mortals and the stars. Despite that, she will do anything that Hades asks because of a deep filial relationship. It's not a relationship she ever imagines will change, but she finds herself unable to forgive her master for choosing duty over a loved one. Might revisit the theme of Elidibus and Emet-Selch and Azem in another variation later.


End file.
